1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and methods for interfacing with Internet search engines. For example, web analytic systems often include additional modules, such as bid management systems to manage keyword bids and advertising campaigns associated with those key words. In particular, the present invention relates to systems and methods for classification of keywords across multiple campaigns in a bid management system associated with a web analytics system.
2. Description of the Background Art
With the development of the Internet, a number of new business models for producing sales and generating revenue have been developed. For example, it is now commonplace for search engines to allow advertisers to purchase keywords and display their associated advertising in response to searches or queries on such keywords. The pricing of such keywords can vary depending on a number of factors including the number of advertisers that want to purchase such keywords, the number of searches including such keywords and other factors. Presently, the management of such keywords is largely performed manually with human users inputting keywords. For example, keywords are currently managed using any one of a number of spreadsheet or document formats. Users typically list the keywords in a document or spreadsheet, then convert the document, so the keywords are listed in a format such as comma-separated values, and finally, that data is converted and uploaded into a search engine. Therefore, since large advertising campaigns can have tens of thousands of keywords as part of an Internet marketing strategy, it would be very cumbersome to manage such keywords in a manual fashion is, as described above.
Referring now to FIG. 1, a conventional scheme used by search engines to pair keywords with text or advertisements is shown. Typically, an advertiser will purchase a number of keywords (keyword 1 to keyword n) according to prices provided by the search engines. The advertiser will also provide one or more ads/text. Then responsive to search inputs by users the search engine will choose, based on the selected keyword, one of the ads/text from a list provided by the advertiser. In the prior art, the search engine randomly pairs keywords with ads/text or selects the ads last text on a rotating basis: first using ad 1, next using ad 2, next using ad 3, etc. until the nth ad is used and returns to ad 1.
Referring now to FIG. 2, the operation of the constituent components is shown in more detail. In a first step, the keyword is selected based on the search criteria input by the user. Then in a next step, an ad/text is selected from a list of possible advertisements. The keyword-ad pair is then provided as part of the web page to the user.
One particular problem for companies is that they often run concurrent advertising campaigns that utilize numerous keywords. Even though the advertising campaigns are unrelated, it is very valuable for the advertisers or companies to group keywords across multiple advertising campaigns (inter-campaign), as well as provide other groupings of keywords, such that a variety of web analytic statistics for such keywords can be reviewed and analyzed. While existing search engines provide a user interface for inputting the keywords into such search engine systems, these user interfaces typically separate the campaigns in a hierarchy. Within this hierarchy, there is limited flexibility to group keywords according to the needs of the advertisers and companies. The keywords are typically grouped by the campaign—and only within that campaign is there an ability to provide groupings of keywords. The prior art does not provide any ability to group keywords across different campaigns. Thus, there is a need for systems and methods that can classify keywords across multiple campaigns to provide greater flexibility in the analysis of web data.